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They want ~$29 USD for their chargers

I got my cables from Monoprice, they're MFI certified and only cost $12 [1]. I have a half dozen iOS devices with lightning ports laying around my house so no I can't pay $20 for a cable and I don't. $30 is for the charger - if you're whining about that, just get a USB powered hub and/or one of these [2].

[1] http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=112&cp_id=11213&cs_id=1083101&p_id=10374&seq=1&format=2
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-BST300-SurgePlus-3-Outlet-Protector/dp/B00ATZJ5YS

2) One place to look at merchandise at and buy from (not necessarily beneficial, if one could buy form many places but still add it to the same common storage that would be better.)

There are a few other places that sell you keys to activate on Steam. The biggest being Amazon...

Steam items on Amazon are marked with the text "[Online Game Code]". Right now, the Bioshock Triple Pack is on sale for half of what Steam sells Bioshock Infinite for, let alone the other two games with it. When you buy it, it'll give you either a single Steam code for all 3 games or separate Steam codes for each game.

Note: Bioshock Infinite is listed as [Download] game, but it also mentioned Steam is required for it... which is because Bioshock Infinite is a SteamWorks game, so you still have to activate it on Steam.

The USA is reported to have a long history of cable tapping, Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X/ref=sr_1_1

"For decades American submarines have roamed the depths in a dangerous battle for information and advantage in missions known only to a select few. Now, after six years of research, those missions are told in Blind Man's Bluff, a magnificent achievement in investigative reporting. It reads like a spy thriller -- except everything in it is true. This is an epic of adventure, ingenuity, courage, and disaster beneath the sea, a story filled with unforgettable characters who engineered daring missions to tap the enemy's underwater communications cables and to shadow Soviet submarines."

FTA: "All eligible entrants who submit a qualified Entry will receive an AWS promotional credit (“Promotional Credit”) of $50 USD to be used toward Paid Services (does not include Amazon FPS, reserved instances or support services) by December 31, 2014 in accordance with the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions available at https://aws.amazon.com/awscredits/ (the “Credit T&Cs”). Individual Promotional Credit codes valued at $50 USD will be emailed to such entrants following the announcement of the Grand Prize winner in November, 2013 " (bolding mine).

Now hold on just a sec... So they intend to give participants a $50 AWS credit... But not up-front? So to enter, you need to pay up front for access so you can develop and deploy your app, and then after you lose they'll give you credit to continue using something you no longer have a reason to keep alive?

Wow. Best scam ever! I need to run one of these "contests" myself!

The same thing happens with AWS partners. Signing up a partner gives you $1000 of service credits, but you can't become a partner unless you know that your systems are compatible. The only way to check if your systems are compatible, you have to pay for their services while you do the testing. So by the time you get your credits, you've completed the testing and you don't need them anymore.

Granted, we're only talking a hundred bucks or so, but still.

No need to wonder- there's a place you can actually try it out, today!

http://www.amazon.com/

Funnel this.

In fact, there was an attempt by the Japanese military brass to kidnap the Emperor to prevent the surrender. The U.S. fully expected to drop 7 or so bombs before Japan surrendered. Worth the read: "The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945."

According to the recent human brain study, facts do not matter. So no wonder people still believe in things like Windows (or open-source) safety and security...

This result seems obvious, given the insights into human nature provided by a recent book I just read, called The Social Conquest of Earth by E.O. Wilson. The book maintains that our need to join and protect a tribe or group is a genetic group adaptation. One example he uses is that of religion, where creation myths are believed and taught even when all evidence points to their being false. His claim is that this is an example of multilevel adaptation, where groups who were composed of individuals who 'drank the kool-aid' (my term) were more able to survive than other groups with members who were not so willing to give up personal independence.

So, according to this, republicans are a tribe, democrats are a tribe, mormons are a tribe, etc. Folks in tribes overlook inconsistencies in the core belief set of the tribe simply because pointing them out would make them stand out in the group, possibly leading to expulsion (which would have been fatal for early hominoids). So, the personal stake (adaptation at a personal level) makes them want to stay in the group, and group adaptation makes members of groups who believe the same things more likely to overcome other groups.

What is a little math when you have your survival to consider?

FTA: "All eligible entrants who submit a qualified Entry will receive an AWS promotional credit (“Promotional Credit”) of $50 USD to be used toward Paid Services (does not include Amazon FPS, reserved instances or support services) by December 31, 2014 in accordance with the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions available at https://aws.amazon.com/awscredits/ (the “Credit T&Cs”). Individual Promotional Credit codes valued at $50 USD will be emailed to such entrants following the announcement of the Grand Prize winner in November, 2013 " (bolding mine).

Now hold on just a sec... So they intend to give participants a $50 AWS credit... But not up-front? So to enter, you need to pay up front for access so you can develop and deploy your app, and then after you lose they'll give you credit to continue using something you no longer have a reason to keep alive?

Wow. Best scam ever! I need to run one of these "contests" myself!

Yeah no crap, AMD put out their own X86 micro last year (sorry I can't find the link, my Google Fu is off ATM) and at $199 it had a 64bit OOO Bobcat APU with a Radeon GPU powerful enough to do 1080p. This thing literally looks like its made from the chips that Intel couldn't sell and the price just adds insult to injury. At least the Bobcat held 4GB of RAM and had enough graphical muscle to be used for most video tasks. I have one of the E350s and with fast memory you can even do some halfway decent gaming on them, I play the Torchlights and Portals on mine no problem.

Speaking of the E series if you don't absolutely HAVE to have micro you can pick up an E350 board, complete with a PCI-E slot and the ability to hold 16GB of DDR 3 (kinda overkill IMHO) and its only $65 shipped. I have built several units with these boards, both HTPCs and office boxes, and I can say they are pretty damned nice. They are great for getting rid of those aging P4s many places still have and at just 18w under load it pulls less maxed out than a P4 did at idle. They also have plenty of graphical power, they make great media tank HTPCs and are even good for casual gaming, they also support hybrid crossfire so if you want even more graphics power you can slap in a dirt cheap HD5450 and be able to play a surprising number of games on the thing.

But $200 for a 32bit Atom with a GMA 600? That is beyond lame, hell its not even a dual core.

Management at my company seems to think that our developers can get extra work done if they work extra long days.

Your management's "thinking" is nothing new.
*shrug*
What you're really asking is how to deal with your management.
So here, check out Death March by Yourdon.
This will answer all your questions (as well as things you didn't think to ask), with more wisdom and insight than you're likely to find via "Ask Slashdot."
It will also give you some perspective to make informed decisions about your options.
The reviews on Amazon will tell you if this is a book for you.

Add to that list:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

and

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq

J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.

You:

...while open source means anyone can try and make it better.

Huh?

It's S Bach's composition. It's not a question of making it "better" but of distributing it to the masses.

But I do have a problem with the fact that these folks have $3,600+ as if this post to distribute this.

This music is available in $21 dollar song books. And for $500, I can get the best of the best music school wannabes to play it -think Juliard.

Good grief, just because it's some internet financing - whatever - doesn't make it sound.

we don't know what the thing that makes it "alive" is as we don't even know what "alive" means.

Incorrect.

Having first learned to write manuscripts on a typewriter, I mimic the same style when writing a novel on the computer; using Courier New in manuscript format, underlining where I want italics and double-spacing everything so there is room to write comments on a hard copy. Some younger people have proof-read my work and actually thought that was the way I wanted it published. I had to explain that as an old-fogy, the presentation style is the last thing I do.

Here's a shameless plug for my latest novel, where you can see from the sample the suggested format for ebooks as specified by Amazon.

Good point. One of the most informative books I've read on the topic is, Acquiring Genomes by Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan, her son by Carl. It's most interesting because it points out that science has never documented the differentiation of a single multi-cellular species, ever. We have far more evidence now that we've learned to sequence DNA, and that's led to many interpretations of such history. But it's so rare that we can't point to a new species that nature has introduced, notwithstanding The Beak of the Finch wherein the authors suppose they may have recorded such an event.

Regardless, the geological, archeological, biological and paleontological evidence fits together more consistently than the historical details of the various Christian gospels. The comparison of reveals a multitude of inconsistencies under scrutiny in the course of theological study at Harvard. see: Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)

Good point. One of the most informative books I've read on the topic is, Acquiring Genomes by Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan, her son by Carl. It's most interesting because it points out that science has never documented the differentiation of a single multi-cellular species, ever. We have far more evidence now that we've learned to sequence DNA, and that's led to many interpretations of such history. But it's so rare that we can't point to a new species that nature has introduced, notwithstanding The Beak of the Finch wherein the authors suppose they may have recorded such an event.

Regardless, the geological, archeological, biological and paleontological evidence fits together more consistently than the historical details of the various Christian gospels. The comparison of reveals a multitude of inconsistencies under scrutiny in the course of theological study at Harvard. see: Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)

Good point. One of the most informative books I've read on the topic is, Acquiring Genomes by Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan, her son by Carl. It's most interesting because it points out that science has never documented the differentiation of a single multi-cellular species, ever. We have far more evidence now that we've learned to sequence DNA, and that's led to many interpretations of such history. But it's so rare that we can't point to a new species that nature has introduced, notwithstanding The Beak of the Finch wherein the authors suppose they may have recorded such an event.

Regardless, the geological, archeological, biological and paleontological evidence fits together more consistently than the historical details of the various Christian gospels. The comparison of reveals a multitude of inconsistencies under scrutiny in the course of theological study at Harvard. see: Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)

I am an (unployed in the field) orthodox Jewish rabbi but I have spoken to many Christians.
Christians are very involved in the creation story as it along with the tree of knowledge of good and evil sin is key to their religion where it is not to ours.
Without the fall of man and original sin there is no need to manufacture a human-divine hybrid to sacrifice for the inherited sins of humanity, Jews are responsible for fixing our own mess among humans and forgiveness is something you get from G-d only for ritual sin.
Jews have had mild interest in creationism as evolution is seen as an outside concept by some. OTOH for at least 1000 years (since the Ramban) there is an esteric/kabalist view that the universe is around 15 billion years old with the pre human days of creation being measured differently on a logarithmic scale if I remember correctly.
WHen I am feeling rational but religious it seems that a greater feat would be for G-d to inject all of the information into an exploding singularity which would result in the universe unfolding as it has.
Our sages claim it a folly to see anything in the narrative of the Garden of Eden as literal, when at the time the energy state of reality was as close as I can understand like a super cool neon acid trip.
If you want to gonk on Jewish creation of the universe type stuff the former chief scientist at Tektronics, contributor to the Bluetooth standard, German Jewish Holocaust survivor, and rational orthodox Jew wrote a cool book, The Heavenly Time Machine by Morris Engelson
http://www.amazon.com/The-Heavenly-Time-Machine-Science/dp/0964287005/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379666062&sr=8-1&keywords=the+heavenly+time+machine
Even if you are not Jewish it still reads like interesting Sci-Fi not Sy-Fi

Sadly, you are probably wrong in your assertion. "Ghost Hunters" by Deborah Blum indicates that the soul does exist, and that we do have scientific evidence of it. http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Hunters-William-Search-Scientific/dp/0143038958. William James and a bunch of well-educated scientists amassed a mountain of evidence, and even though they were able to prove 95% of it was false, there was a remaining 5% that strongly indicates the soul exists, and that there is an afterlife. What worries me is if the scientific establishment ever decides to pick this up again and chart it.

Baah... who'd want copper when you can have silver.

no more waiting
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Cable-Version/dp/B000I1X6PM

I agree that good investigative journalism is vital to our societies, and needs to be done by adequately funded professional journalists.

But there's a problem. Many news organisations largely gave up on this kind of journalism years ago. As is well covered in Flat Earth News many settle for just parroting generic stories from the wire services. This is why, for example, you often see the same stories (and even verbatim text) across multiple news outlets.

Reaching interstellar space wasn't the original goal. As revealed in Robotic Exploration of the Solar System: Part I: The Golden Age 1957-1982, there were numerous primary scientific objectives focused mainly on the Jupiter and Saturn's systems (not even the unprecedented Neptune and Uranus discoveries we take for granted today) that were the only reason why the Voyager projects managed to receive the significantly reduced congressional funding it did. Everything beyond that had been a balancing act and genius of project management who painfully understood the extremely unique and rare window of opportunity as well as the scientific team dedication and collaboration to squeeze as much scientific value out of the proverbial stone amidst an ever year-over-year declining operational budget.

And are we under any legal obligation to not lie to these people? No we are not.

As a matter of fact, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives us the right to lie.

I was raised not to lie under any circumstances. It was a long time before I realized that this is impossible. Truth is slippery, and in truth, it cannot be fully known. I trudged through life doing my best to be honest in all but the "white lie" social situations. Over time, I realized how gullible I was, as when one is honest, it is a natural assumption that others are honest with you. Eventually, I became more and more aware of how full of shit everyone was. There were degrees, as I found some individuals beyond reproach in their honesty, and some that I could no longer believe a wors they say, My skepticism even spread to the news I was reading, and was reinforced by a certain news agency winning a court case effectively giving them the right to make up news out of thin air.

I still try to stay honest. In honesty, you don't need to remember any extra annotations to your memory. Every lie will create the need for 10 more, and so on. Who has time for that? Some people are exceptional at lying. Some live in their lies. Some live a lie to protect themselves and their family, but are otherwise decent, honest, psychologiclaly healthy individuals.

It is too late for me, I find I am terrible at creating and casting the intentional lie. I do my best, but my efforts to conceal are easily revealed. I am the opposite of a trained operative... I was trained and it is embedded in me to be as honest as I can. More and more I learn the correct way to live is to not engage in lies, to keep my mouth shut and say nothing rather than lie or tell the truth.

Hopefully, it is not too late for you all reading this. Protect yourself. If you need an ethical reason to behave dishonestly, I recommend studying the excellent philosophical works of Sissela Bok, espescially this. In a nutshell, Bok goes into detail how in a society of liars, one must lie to survive.

I wish you luck. But always remember, no one likes liars, and no one tolerates liars, not even liars. Don't get caught.

The jobless population will be hired as NPCs in vast, ultra-realistic MMORPGs where they will supply amusement to the paying player characters; to be continuously killed, tortured, and humiliated by the ruling elite.

Hi, where can I download more RAM?

You may wish to contact the developers of this software and ask if they will make it available as a digital download.

As has been pointed out before, you cannot arbitrarily change what constitutes a season to a reasonable person after the purchase.

As been pointed out before, sometimes not even the content producer knows how many episodes are in a season. This is the price for quick production times. Ten years everyone had to wait at least six months until the DVD box sets came out so everyone knew at purchase how many episodes. Are you going to tell The Guild how many episodes they should make in a season. Are you going to tell some shows, that they can't combine two-part episodes into one big one for continuity reasons.

And besides, go check out AMCs website before making claims about "AMC gets to decide on the definition of a season." THEY SAY THERE ARE 16 EPISODES THEMSELVES. How about the "whats next" link: "Episode 515". Or click on the episode 14 photos link. The header says "Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode Photos." Duuuuuuuhhhhh.

Check out Amazon's website or Microsoft's Xbox Live. Even the DVD box set for Season 5 (which has been out) has 8 episodes. 1) Apple did all of this or 2) AMC isn't being clear.

As I said. AMC screwed Apple who then decided to screw their customers. Apple decided to offer a "SEASON" pass and then redefined the season after AMC got greedy. I don't care if it came out as two halves, Apple sold the season, not a half season.

Again, Apple does not define nor tell copyright holders what is in their content. They don't tell New Line that Hobbit should be one film. Apple provides a store for AMC to sell their wares. AMC provides content including descriptions. Apple handles the infrastructure and billing. You keep saying it's one season; again you are not the copyright holder. Also if you have a problem with a product in how it was manufactured, take it up with the manufacturer.

If you went to your local grocer to buy a 12 pack of Coke they advertised and put down your money only to be served a six pack at the same cost you would be reasonably upset that they screwed you.

The problem with you analogy was that the store advertised that it was a 12 pack. A better analogy is that the store advertised a box of coke (without saying how many) and that you read on Coke's website that they sell 12 packs in that style of box and made the assumption the store was selling a 12 pack. The store wasn't clear; but you put 1 and 2 together and thought it was 4.

You are a nitwit if you cannot see that. I don't give a shit about your lame copyright excuse.

Apple does not get to tell Peter Jackson that The Hobbit should be one movie. Not too long ago Apple had to sell DRM music because of copyright. They couldn't remove the DRM merely because they wanted; they had to negotiate that with the copyright holders. If Apple breached copyright: 1) they'd lose and 2) no one would allow them to sell anything == no store. Good thing you are not Apple's lawyer or have thought things through.

I'm not asking them to pirate or media shift or whatever the hell you were trying to obfuscate with.

As a reseller you don't get to change someone else's manufactured product on a whim. Especially if it is copyright protected. You are creating a derivative which only the copyright holder can allow. And Congress ensured that copyright holders have a great deal of power when it comes to ability to control distribution.

Apple should have eaten the cost of the second half or not offered a "season pass" to begin with. Don't sell shit if you can't deliver the goods.

Your entire premise is based on your opinion. Not what the law says. Not what contracts say.

Again, you think Season 5 = 16 episodes. You don't get to decide that; you are not the copyright holder. Only AMC does. AMC thought Season 1 was 7 episodes; are you going to say AMC should have combined it with Season 2 to make it a 20 episode Season 1?

I am not a climate scientist, but I am open to explanations of why any or all of the above sources are not correct.

Of course I hope global warming is overrated, because the world is still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. If the consequences really will be dire, we will find out.

You could start with Ray Pierrehumbert's textbook.

That has a slightly idiosyncratic selection of topics, though; so you should follow up with another textbook, perhaps this.

Of course there will still be gaps in your knowledge after that. But there are many more textbooks...and you'll be in a position to identify the gaps by then.

If you're not prepared to put in any work, then Spencer Weart's web site has some easy reading.

I am not a climate scientist, but I am open to explanations of why any or all of the above sources are not correct.

Of course I hope global warming is overrated, because the world is still dumping CO2 into the atmosphere. If the consequences really will be dire, we will find out.

You could start with Ray Pierrehumbert's textbook.

That has a slightly idiosyncratic selection of topics, though; so you should follow up with another textbook, perhaps this.

Of course there will still be gaps in your knowledge after that. But there are many more textbooks...and you'll be in a position to identify the gaps by then.

If you're not prepared to put in any work, then Spencer Weart's web site has some easy reading.

The only "civil liberty" it attacks is the ability to fraudulently sign in for someone else. This is how unions get a bad name. Bio-metrics are used for time card validation on many places and it is neither "draconian" nor "an attack on civil liberties".

This is The Peter Principle at work.

If a superior is incompetent they will often judge the subordinate by "behavior that supports the rules, rituals, and forms of the status quo. Promptness, neatness, courtesy to superiors...." This is evaluating input, not output.

It's pretty easy to show up, put your hand on the scanner, and half-ass it all day long. Do you want clean tubes? Or do you want employees who make sure to put their hand on the scanner at the right time? When you figure that out, design your checks and metrics accordingly.

Yes. An interesting bit of historical fiction concerning these events: World without end.

Is there some term that is used to distinguish connectors with / without this functionality, so I can buy the right kind?

I gave up on finding USB Charging Specification-compatible chargers a while ago and just picked up a "charge-only" USB cable, which does the same thing as the adapter in this article: short the D+ and D- pins on the device side. This lets any standards-compliant (i.e. non-Apple) device know that it's safe to charge at full speed, so it should fix the problem so long as your charger can handle the current.

You can tell whether an Android device is charging properly by looking at the Battery pages in Settings. It should say "Charging (AC)" to indicate a full-speed charge, or "Charging (USB)" to indicate that it's limiting itself to 100mA.

Isn't the work conditions one of the biggest things you look at in a cancer study?

Not in the United States, where such things are prevented by the Corporate Government Apparatus. Perhaps in civilised countries? Are there any?

When I first got a Playstation Vita (What? Why is everyone laughing?), I had a USB battery to charge it on the go - but it wouldn't work! Of course, Sony said that it would only charge from their own Vita power bricks, but that was obviously just PR - it was just a USB A connector on the business end, after all. After some investigating, I found out that the Vita checks for shorted data pins, and if it doesn't find them, it won't charge (unless it's connected to a PS3 or computer.) Other products use different methods, such as sets of resistors to put a certain constant voltage on the data pins; said voltage varies according to how much current the adapter can safely provide. Apple is a big one for this method. The solution I went with involved getting some USB swivel adapters, cutting open the female sides, and soldering the data pins together. This tricked the Vita into thinking it was connected to its own power brick, so it drew the full 1.5A from any USB source. This could be dangerous, if you have it on a cheap charger that can't safely provide that much. Since then, I've used these devices for charging other things that use the same method of identifying fast chargers, and even for data safeguarding, as this article suggests. If you don't want to do the work yourself, such things can easily be purchased (they weren't as prevalent at the time). -- As several other people have said, I'm curious what all the intermediate stuff in this USB Condom is for. Perhaps it's to do with negotiating higher power draw from host devices, and making your device think it can pull however much it wants, for safe, fast charging? -- Sources: http://www.dannychoo.com/en/post/26419/PS+Vita+USB+Mod.html http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007Y3L5RI

Showing that in the USA, Apple can't make the claim that biometric data is never transmitted over the network'

Who gives a flying phantasm about the transmission of data? In the U.S. this is a step backwards for privacy.

Your fingerprints are something you have, not something you know. You can be compelled to produce them, and they are not considered protected 'testimonial', just like blood, urine, or DNA samples. Your 5th amendment rights, on shaky ground as it is regarding pass-phrases, will not apply to this security model.

From the first or second "The People's Almanac http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People's_Almanac
and http://www.amazon.com/The-Peoples-Almanac-David-Wallechinsky/dp/0385040601
November 1975 and October 1978 respectfully

It was mentioned in Russia one can't just up and move or go somewhere . You must first get permission and
be supplied with the proper papers. Showing papers at every border crossing or when asked for them.
To be arrested or penalized in some manner if you papers weren't in order or being carried.

It went on to say there's no real difference in the United States.

At any time you can be asked for your drivers license or an ID; if you don' t have one,
you can be arrested for not having a proper ID. If you don't have a place to live or less that so many dollars at the time,
you can also be arrested for vagrancy

The situation isn't new; just the ways of running afoul of the legal system have increased.

My MP3 player, the nearly 10 years old Cowon D2, actually came with a power-only USB cable. Maybe their goal was to save money on copper.

Cost isn't an issue for most of the people who would use these stoves. It isn't an issue because they don't have any money.

I actually feel angry about the stupidity and short-sightedness of this project. Why can't they make a design that uses readily-available materials?

"Small is Beautiful" was written 40 years ago, but its message seems as relevant today as it ever was.

It's because you're reading about them.

You anthropomorphize transparently and automatically, in your head. Empathizing while looking at images of centipedes the whole day on the other hand...
Well, let's just say that we have this thing for faces.
Also, that when we think of cuddly and friendly - we tend to disregard insects.

I'd like to vote for the wonderful TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND.

Currently US$53 at amazon, I have it running the excellent Gargoyle firmware and having all kinds of fun playing with user quotas and the QOS. You can put DD-WRT on it too with some cautions.

I picked up one of these (Black Hole Faraday Bag - RF Signal Isolation for Forensics, Large Window Size) and toss my gadgets in it, roll it up when I'm out traveling and don't need my phone broadcasting my location, GPS or AGPS every 3 seconds. Same with my iPad, GPS, EZ-Pass, and so on.

Yeah, you're right.

But then there's the obvious counter-argument: Not everyone has a Rasberry Pi and a spare USB WiFi NIC kicking around, either.

If I were to replace it with newer hardware, what make and model of home router would you recommend for no more than the price of a Raspberry Pi?

You didn't set the bar very high, did you?

From adafruit:

$39.95 Raspberry Pi Model B 512MB RAM
$9.95 Adafruit Pi Case- Enclosure for Raspberry Pi Model A or B
$11.95 Miniature WiFi (802.11b/g/n) Module: For Raspberry Pi and more
$5.95 5V 1A (1000mA) USB port power supply - UL Listed
$7.95 SD/MicroSD Memory Card (4 GB SDHC)

== $75.75. Adding first-class USPS shipping (to Ohio) adds another $5.18.

That's a grand total of $80.93 to get enough RaspPi to build an access point (some assembly required). (And you still need an Ethernet cable, and a USB cable for power.)

Or, for $50, shipping included you can get the venerable Linksys WRT54GL. Comes pre-assembled with everything you need except third-party software, which is it is widely compatible with.

For a few dollars more than a pile of Raspberry Pi kit, you can also get an Asus RT-N16. It's a beastly little router for the price, and has a gigabit switch built-in along with 802.11n (2.4GHz only, sadly). It's about as compatible with third-party firmware as the WRT54GL.

They're currently going for about $84, shipping included. Also comes pre-assembled with everything needed except software.

Yeah, you're right.

But then there's the obvious counter-argument: Not everyone has a Rasberry Pi and a spare USB WiFi NIC kicking around, either.

If I were to replace it with newer hardware, what make and model of home router would you recommend for no more than the price of a Raspberry Pi?

You didn't set the bar very high, did you?

From adafruit:

$39.95 Raspberry Pi Model B 512MB RAM
$9.95 Adafruit Pi Case- Enclosure for Raspberry Pi Model A or B
$11.95 Miniature WiFi (802.11b/g/n) Module: For Raspberry Pi and more
$5.95 5V 1A (1000mA) USB port power supply - UL Listed
$7.95 SD/MicroSD Memory Card (4 GB SDHC)

== $75.75. Adding first-class USPS shipping (to Ohio) adds another $5.18.

That's a grand total of $80.93 to get enough RaspPi to build an access point (some assembly required). (And you still need an Ethernet cable, and a USB cable for power.)

Or, for $50, shipping included you can get the venerable Linksys WRT54GL. Comes pre-assembled with everything you need except third-party software, which is it is widely compatible with.

For a few dollars more than a pile of Raspberry Pi kit, you can also get an Asus RT-N16. It's a beastly little router for the price, and has a gigabit switch built-in along with 802.11n (2.4GHz only, sadly). It's about as compatible with third-party firmware as the WRT54GL.

They're currently going for about $84, shipping included. Also comes pre-assembled with everything needed except software.

Not only is the spot price for NAND $5 per 8GB ($640/TB), but by remarkable coincidence retailers are selling complete SSDs - damn good ones - at $635.99/TB. The quoted price of $29,000 for a 4TB SSD is for a ludicrously overpriced high end enterprise drive. The only problem with Samsung selling a $2560 4TB SSD is that it way overshoots the psychological barrier of $1000 for one drive. They could clearly make one if they wanted to in a 3.5" form factor for a negligible investment, but not enough people would buy it. But I wouldn't think that it will be long before we see 2TB-4TB SSDs at prices linearly scaled from the $635.99 current price for a 1TB SSD.

I think most people have figured out when you when you mention "Crucial M4 512 TB drives" you really mean 512 GB, and similarly for "$750/GB" (really $750/TB). I'm not going to criticize the lapse. I've done it too many times myself.

Agreed 100% on the $40/TB for hard drives.

And SSDs are already at least down to $635.99/TB, and probably less if we look harder. In fact the Samsung 840 EVO is a pretty damn high end consumer SSD.

National Instruments LabVIEW as graphical control-flow (e.g., looping, branching) constructs http://www.ni.com/white-paper/14556/en
+
ROOM+ObjecTime (now IBM Rational Rose Realtime) as graphical object-oriented & nested state-machines http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Object-Oriented-Modeling-Bran-Selic/dp/0471599174/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379088665&sr=1-1-fkmr1&keywords=realtime+object+oriented+modeling+objectime

Ultimately Apple advertised a season pass for Season 5 on their website, profited from the sales of that season, and delivered content for something that virtually any consumer would not consider the entire Season.

That is not the point. The point is that a fan expected Season 5 to last 16 episodes even though AMC broke it into 2 seasons. This is probably because there was a break in between the seasons and they wanted to sell DVD/Bluray sets sooner. Waiting for the last 8 would have delayed releasing the box set. Did Apple ever advertise to the fan that Season 5 is 16 episodes? No. Also Apple didn't even set what the description of the season was. AMC does that.

They can argue all the above in court, but I doubt any jury would buy it. If you sell me Season 5, you need to deliver Season 5.

Let me clear again: Apple only sells what AMC says is Season 5. Period. AMC has told them and Amazon and MS that Season 5 has 8 episodes. Period. Apple can't lump Seasons 5 and 6 into one season just because they want to. That is them changing the product. They can't do that any more than your local store deciding you don't get enough chips in a bag of potato chips. Can the store open up the bag and start combining them into bigger bags? No. They sell what is provided to them by the manufacturer. Considering that AMC split BB Season 5 everywhere and not just iTunes, really that was AMC's decision not Apple's.

You think Season 5 is 16 episodes. You have no standing in a contract between Apple and AMC any more than you can tell the store that you get more chips. You have a problem with a product, take it up with the manufacturer.

Apple could refund the purchase to anybody who was mislead and say that they had nothing to do with it, and that would probably allow them to escape liability if they did it before they got to trial. However, they control the store - they could remove the show from their store at any time as being fraudulent, just as Ebay or Amazon does when third parties list items that are misleading.

From the seller's standpoint, the buyer got the product that the manufacturer made. The second thing is what are the damages? In this case, the fan had to pay normal price for a season. That's it. He wasn't going to get a 40% discount that he might have thought he was getting. Apple and Amazon sold the eight episodes at $22. Based on pricing if the buyer thought he was getting 16 episodes for $22 that's 40% off. Even if he wins, he can't prove damages.

However, I feel a company the size and stature of Google should've pushed ARM based devices into the market - now Microsoft, Apple and now Google are all pushing Intel gear.

It isn't really Google that is determining what processor is going into the Chromebooks. That's up to the manufacturers. Samsung's Series 3 Chromebook is running the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual SoC, which uses the ARMv7 instruction set. It's been the best selling Laptop on Amazon for the entirety of 2013.

As such, there are a lot of ARM-based Chromebooks out there. My wife has one; she loves it.

Yaz

Oh, many researchers do know better and there are theoretical models that are quite stringent and have metric properties:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasch_model
see also
http://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Measurement-Volume-Representations-Mathematics/dp/0486453146
The problem is that you can then test if your measurement axioms hold and most likely they won't so why do it ;)